The Humour of Homer and Other EssaysButler, Samuel
History
The Humour of Homer and Other Essays
Butler, Samuel
Essays; Greek wit and humor -- History and criticism; Homer -- Humor
"The modification of species has been mainly effected by
accumulation of spontaneous variations; it has been aided in an
important manner by accumulation of variations due to use and
disuse, and in an unimportant manner by spontaneous variations; I do
not even now think that spontaneous variations have been very
important, but I used once to think them less important than I do
now."
It is a discouraging symptom of the age that such a system should
have been so long belauded, and it is a sign of returning
intelligence that even he who has been more especially the alter ego
of Mr. Darwin should have felt constrained to close the chapter of
Charles-Darwinism as a living theory, and relegate it to the
important but not very creditable place in history which it must
henceforth occupy. It is astonishing, however, that Mr. Wallace
should have quoted the extract from the Origin of Species just
given, as he has done on p. 412 of his Darwinism, without betraying
any sign that he has caught its driftlessness--for drift, other than
a desire to hedge, it assuredly has not got. The battle now turns
on the question whether modifications of either structure or
instinct due to use or disuse are ever inherited, or whether they
are not. Can the effects of habit be transmitted to progeny at all?
We know that more usually they are not transmitted to any
perceptible extent, but we believe also that occasionally, and
indeed not infrequently, they are inherited and even intensified.
What are our grounds for this opinion? It will be my object to put
these forward in the following number of the Universal Review.
The Deadlock in Darwinism: Part II {271}
At the close of my article in last month's number of the Universal
Review, I said I would in this month's issue show why the opponents
of Charles-Darwinism believe the effects of habits acquired during
the lifetime of a parent to produce an effect on their subsequent
offspring, in spite of the fact that we can rarely find the effect
in any one generation, or even in several, sufficiently marked to
arrest our attention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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